About the Faculty:

Prof. Judith Maria Bragança joined the Department of Biological Sciences as a Faculty in 2004 when BITS Pilani established its third campus in Goa. Since then she is involved in teaching a number of courses at the First Degree, Higher Degree and Work Integrated Learning programmes (WILP). She has been a Principal Investigator for in house as well as externally funded research projects. Prof. Bragança has over 35 publications in reputed peer reviewed journals and has a number of conference proceedings to her credit. She has presented her research work at numerous National and International conferences. Dr. Braganca currently serves on the Editorial Board of Frontiers in Microbiology, Extreme Microbiology. She has been actively involved as a referee of international journals from Elsevier, FEMS, Springer, etc. Her research expertise includes Biodiversity of Halophiles, Biotechnological applications of halophilic archaea and bacteria and Metal tolerance in microorganisms.

Dr. Braganca has a PhD in Microbiology from Goa University in 2003. Her Doctoral work elucidated the biodiversity of halophilic archaea and explored their mechanisms of resistance to arsenic and cadmium. Prof. Braganca is currently a major Advisor to 5 PhD students and has successfully graduated 3 PhD students besides numerous dissertation and project students. 

Under the BITS Pilani – University Immersion Scheme she visited Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany during summer of 2013. Prof. Bragança is a member of American Society of Microbiology (ASM), International Society for Salt Lake Research (ISSLR), Indian Institute of Metals (IIM) and Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI).

Besides teaching, Prof. Bragança has been associated with BITS Pilani administration assuming multifarious responsibilities, mainly as Head of Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty-In-charge, Publications and Media Relations, Convener- Departmental Research Committee, Convenor_ Departmental Committee for Academics, besides being a member of various committees such as the Standing Committee for Students Discipline, Senate, Cross-campus Departmental Committee for Academics, Academic Counseling Board etc